The present invention relates to electrophoretic media. The present media are especially, although not exclusively, intended for use in encapsulated and microcell electrophoretic displays. The invention also relates to electrophoretic particles for use in such media, and to displays incorporating such media. Certain aspects of the present invention extend to electro-optic displays other than electrophoretic displays. The electrophoretic particles of the present invention are modified with polymers. The electro-optic displays of the present invention use an electro-optic medium having a voltage threshold.
In the displays of the present invention, the electro-optic medium (when a non-electrophoretic electro-optic medium) will typically be a solid (such displays may hereinafter for convenience be referred to as “solid electro-optic displays”), in the sense that the electro-optic medium has solid external surfaces, although the medium may, and often does, have internal liquid- or gas-filled spaces, and to methods for assembling displays using such an electro-optic medium. Thus, the term “solid electro-optic displays” includes encapsulated electrophoretic displays, encapsulated liquid crystal displays, and other types of displays discussed below.
The term “electro-optic”, as applied to a material or a display, is used herein in its conventional meaning in the imaging art to refer to a material having first and second display states differing in at least one optical property, the material being changed from its first to its second display state by application of an electric field to the material. Although the optical property is typically color perceptible to the human eye, it may be another optical property, such as optical transmission, reflectance, luminescence or, in the case of displays intended for machine reading, pseudo-color in the sense of a change in reflectance of electromagnetic wavelengths outside the visible range.
The term “gray state” is used herein in its conventional meaning in the imaging art to refer to a state intermediate two extreme optical states of a pixel, and does not necessarily imply a black-white transition between these two extreme states. For example, several of the patents and published applications referred to below describe electrophoretic displays in which the extreme states are white and deep blue, so that an intermediate “gray state” would actually be pale blue. Indeed, as already mentioned the transition between the two extreme states may not be a color change at all.
The terms “bistable” and “bistability” are used herein in their conventional meaning in the art to refer to displays comprising display elements having first and second display states differing in at least one optical property, and such that after any given element has been driven, by means of an addressing pulse of finite duration, to assume either its first or second display state, after the addressing pulse has terminated, that state will persist for at least several times, for example at least four times, the minimum duration of the addressing pulse required to change the state of the display element. It is shown in published U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0180687 that some particle-based electrophoretic displays capable of gray scale are stable not only in their extreme black and white states but also in their intermediate gray states, and the same is true of some other types of electro-optic displays. This type of display is properly called “multi-stable” rather than bistable, although for convenience the term “bistable” may be used herein to cover both bistable and multi-stable displays.
Several types of electro-optic displays are known. One type of electro-optic display is a rotating bichromal member type as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,808,783; 5,777,782; 5,760,761; 6,054,071 6,055,091; 6,097,531; 6,128,124; 6,137,467; and 6,147,791 (although this type of display is often referred to as a “rotating bichromal ball” display, the term “rotating bichromal member” is preferred as more accurate since in some of the patents mentioned above the rotating members are not spherical). Such a display uses a large number of small bodies (typically spherical or cylindrical) which have two or more sections with differing optical characteristics, and an internal dipole. These bodies are suspended within liquid-filled vacuoles within a matrix, the vacuoles being filled with liquid so that the bodies are free to rotate. The appearance of the display is changed to applying an electric field thereto, thus rotating the bodies to various positions and varying which of the sections of the bodies is seen through a viewing surface. This type of electro-optic medium is typically bistable.
Another type of electro-optic display uses an electrochromic medium, for example an electrochromic medium in the form of a nanochromic film comprising an electrode formed at least in part from a semi-conducting metal oxide and a plurality of dye molecules capable of reversible color change attached to the electrode; see, for example O'Regan, B., et al., Nature 1991, 353, 737; and Wood, D., Information Display, 18(3), 24 (March 2002). See also Bach, U., et al., Adv. Mater., 2002, 14(11), 845. Nanochromic films of this type are also described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,301,038, International Application Publication No. WO 01/27690, and in U.S. Patent Application 2003/0214695. This type of medium is also typically bistable.
Another type of electro-optic display, which has been the subject of intense research and development for a number of years, is the particle-based electrophoretic display, in which a plurality of charged particles move through a suspending fluid under the influence of an electric field. Electrophoretic displays can have attributes of good brightness and contrast, wide viewing angles, state bistability, and low power consumption when compared with liquid crystal displays. Nevertheless, problems with the long-term image quality of these displays have prevented their widespread usage. For example, particles that make up electrophoretic displays tend to settle, resulting in inadequate service-life for these displays.
Numerous patents and applications assigned to or in the names of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and E Ink Corporation have recently been published describing encapsulated electrophoretic media. Such encapsulated media comprise numerous small capsules, each of which itself comprises an internal phase containing electrophoretically-mobile particles suspended in a liquid suspending medium, and a capsule wall surrounding the internal phase. Typically, the capsules are themselves held within a polymeric binder to form a coherent layer positioned between two electrodes. Encapsulated media of this type are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,930,026; 5,961,804; 6,017,584; 6,067,185; 6,118,426; 6,120,588; 6,120,839; 6,124,851; 6,130,773; 6,130,774; 6,172,798; 6,177,921; 6,232,950; 6,249,271; 6,252,564; 6,262,706; 6,262,833; 6,300,932; 6,312,304; 6,312,971; 6,323,989; 6,327,072; 6,376,828; 6,377,387; 6,392,785; 6,392,786; 6,413,790; 6,422,687; 6,445,374; 6,445,489; 6,459,418; 6,473,072; 6,480,182; 6,498,114; 6,504,524; 6,506,438; 6,512,354; 6,515,649; 6,518,949; 6,521,489; 6,531,997; 6,535,197; 6,538,801; 6,545,291; 6,580,545; 6,639,578; 6,652,075; 6,657,772; 6,664,944; 6,680,725; 6,683,333; 6,704,133; 6,710,540; 6,721,083; 6,727,881; 6,738,050; 6,750,473; and 6,753,999; and U.S. Patent Applications Publication Nos. 2002/0019081; 2002/0021270; 2002/0060321; 2002/0063661; 2002/0090980; 2002/0113770; 2002/0130832; 2002/0131147; 2002/0171910; 2002/0180687; 2002/0180688; 2002/0185378; 2003/0011560; 2003/0020844; 2003/0025855; 2003/0038755; 2003/0053189; 2003/0102858; 2003/0132908; 2003/0137521; 2003/0137717; 2003/0151702; 2003/0214695; 2003/0214697; 2003/0222315; 2004/0008398; 2004/0012839; 2004/0014265; 2004/0027327; 2004/0075634; 2004/0094422; 2004/0105036; 2004/0112750; and 2004/0119681; and International Applications Publication Nos. WO 99/67678; WO 00/05704; WO 00/38000; WO 00/38001; WO00/36560; WO 00/67110; WO 00/67327; WO 01/07961; WO 01/08241; WO 03/107,315; WO 2004/023195; and WO 2004/049045.
Known electrophoretic media, both encapsulated and unencapsulated, can be divided into two main types, referred to hereinafter for convenience as “single particle” and “dual particle” respectively. A single particle medium has only a single type of electrophoretic particle suspended in a suspending medium, at least one optical characteristic of which differs from that of the particles. (In referring to a single type of particle, we do not imply that all particles of the type are absolutely identical. For example, provided that all particles of the type possess a charge of the same polarity, considerable variation in parameters such as particle color, size and electrophoretic mobility can be tolerated without affecting the utility of the medium. For example, two particles of different color, but the same charge, may be mixed in a single capsule, together with a single pigment (or multiple pigments) of opposite charge, to provide, by appropriate choice of the colors of these pigments, colors of any desired intermediate shade in either or both of the optical states.) When such a medium is placed between a pair of electrodes, at least one of which is transparent, depending upon the relative potentials of the two electrodes, the medium can display the optical characteristic of the particles (when the particles are adjacent the electrode closer to the observer, hereinafter called the “front” electrode) or the optical characteristic of the suspending medium (when the particles are adjacent the electrode remote from the observer, hereinafter called the “rear” electrode (so that the particles are hidden by the suspending medium).
A dual particle medium has two different types of particles differing in at least one optical characteristic and a suspending fluid which may be uncolored or colored, but which is typically uncolored. The two types of particles differ in electrophoretic mobility; this difference in mobility may be in polarity (this type may hereinafter be referred to as an “opposite charge dual particle” medium) and/or magnitude. When such a dual particle medium is placed between the aforementioned pair of electrodes, depending upon the relative potentials of the two electrodes, the medium can display the optical characteristic of either set of particles, although the exact manner in which this is achieved differs depending upon whether the difference in mobility is in polarity or only in magnitude. For ease of illustration, consider an electrophoretic medium in which one type of particles is black and the other type white. If the two types of particles differ in polarity (if, for example, the black particles are positively charged and the white particles negatively charged), the particles will be attracted to the two different electrodes, so that if, for example, the front electrode is negative relative to the rear electrode, the black particles will be attracted to the front electrode and the white particles to the rear electrode, so that the medium will appear black to the observer. Conversely, if the front electrode is positive relative to the rear electrode, the white particles will be attracted to the front electrode and the black particles to the rear electrode, so that the medium will appear white to the observer.
If the two types of particles have charges of the same polarity, but differ in electrophoretic mobility (this type of medium may hereinafter to referred to as a “same polarity dual particle” medium), both types of particles will be attracted to the same electrode, but one type will reach the electrode before the other, so that the type facing the observer differs depending upon the electrode to which the particles are attracted. For example suppose the previous illustration is modified so that both the black and white particles are positively charged, but the black particles have the higher electrophoretic mobility. If now the front electrode is negative relative to the rear electrode, both the black and white particles will be attracted to the front electrode, but the black particles, because of their higher mobility will reach it first, so that a layer of black particles will coat the front electrode and the medium will appear black to the observer. Conversely, if the front electrode is positive relative to the rear electrode, both the black and white particles will be attracted to the rear electrode, but the black particles, because of their higher mobility will reach it first, so that a layer of black particles will coat the rear electrode, leaving a layer of white particles remote from the rear electrode and facing the observer, so that the medium will appear white to the observer: note that this type of dual particle medium requires that the suspending fluid be sufficiently transparent to allow the layer of white particles remote from the rear electrode to be readily visible to the observer. Typically, the suspending fluid in such a display is not colored at all, but some color may be incorporated for the purpose of correcting any undesirable tint in the white particles seen therethrough, or to produce a desirable shade of color in the gray state.
Both single and dual particle electrophoretic displays may be capable of intermediate gray states having optical characteristics intermediate the two extreme optical states already described.
Some of the aforementioned patents and published applications disclose encapsulated electrophoretic media having three or more different types of particles within each capsule. For purposes of the present application, such multi-particle media are regarded as sub-species of dual particle media.
Also, many of the aforementioned patents and applications recognize that the walls surrounding the discrete microcapsules in an encapsulated electrophoretic medium could be replaced by a continuous phase, thus producing a so-called polymer-dispersed electrophoretic display, in which the electrophoretic medium comprises a plurality of discrete droplets of an electrophoretic fluid and a continuous phase of a polymeric material, and that the discrete droplets of electrophoretic fluid within such a polymer-dispersed electrophoretic display may be regarded as capsules or microcapsules even though no discrete capsule membrane is associated with each individual droplet; see for example, the aforementioned 2002/0131147. Accordingly, for purposes of the present application, such polymer-dispersed electrophoretic media are regarded as sub-species of encapsulated electrophoretic media.
A related type of electrophoretic display is a so-called “microcell electrophoretic display”. In a microcell electrophoretic display, the charged particles and the suspending fluid are not encapsulated within microcapsules but instead are retained within a plurality of cavities formed within a carrier medium, typically a polymeric film. See, for example, International Application Publication No. WO 02/01281, and published US Application No. 2002/0075556, both assigned to Sipix Imaging, Inc.
Although electrophoretic media are often opaque (since, for example, in many electrophoretic media, the particles substantially block transmission of visible light through the display) and operate in a reflective mode, many electrophoretic displays can be made to operate in a so-called “shutter mode” in which one display state is substantially opaque and one is light-transmissive. See, for example, the aforementioned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,130,774 and 6,172,798, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,872,552; 6,144,361; 6,271,823; 6,225,971; and 6,184,856. Dielectrophoretic displays, which are similar to electrophoretic displays but rely upon variations in electric field strength, can operate in a similar mode; see U.S. Pat. No. 4,418,346.
An encapsulated or microcell electrophoretic display typically does not suffer from the clustering and settling failure mode of traditional electrophoretic devices and provides further advantages, such as the ability to print or coat the display on a wide variety of flexible and rigid substrates. (Use of the word “printing” is intended to include all forms of printing and coating, including, but without limitation: pre-metered coatings such as patch die coating, slot or extrusion coating, slide or cascade coating, curtain coating; roll coating such as knife over roll coating, forward and reverse roll coating; gravure coating; dip coating; spray coating; meniscus coating; spin coating; brush coating; air knife coating; silk screen printing processes; electrostatic printing processes; thermal printing processes; ink jet printing processes; and other similar techniques.) Thus, the resulting display can be flexible. Further, because the display medium can be printed (using a variety of methods), the display itself can be made inexpensively.
However, the service life of encapsulated electrophoretic displays, of both the single and dual particle types, is still lower than is altogether desirable. It appears (although this invention is in no way limited by any theory as to such matters) that this service life is limited by factors such as sticking of the electrophoretic particles to the capsule wall, and the tendency of particles to aggregate into clusters which prevent the particles completing the movements necessary for switching of the display between its optical states. In this regard, opposite charge dual particle electrophoretic displays pose a particularly difficult problem, since inherently oppositely charged particles in close proximity to one another will be electrostatically attracted to each other and will display a strong tendency to form stable aggregates. Experimentally, it has been found that if one attempts to produce a black/white encapsulated display of this type using untreated commercially available titania and carbon black pigments, the display either does not switch at all or has a service life so short as to be undesirable for commercial purposes.
It has long been known that the physical properties and surface characteristics of electrophoretic particles can be modified by adsorbing various materials on to the surfaces of the particles, or chemically bonding various materials to these surfaces. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,285,801 (Chiang) describes an electrophoretic display composition in which the particles are coated with a highly fluorinated polymer, which acts as a dispersant, and which is stated to prevent the particles from flocculating and to increase their electrophoretic sensitivity. U.S. Pat. No. 4,298,448 (Müller et al.) describes an electrophoretic medium in which the particles are coated with an organic material, such as a wax, which is solid at the operating temperature of the medium but which melts at a higher temperature. The coating serves to lower the density of the electrophoretic particles and is also stated to increase the uniformity of the charges thereon. U.S. Pat. No. 4,891,245 describes a process for producing particles for use in electrophoretic displays, wherein a heavy, solid pigment, preferred for its high contrast or refractive index properties, is coated with a polymeric material. This process significantly reduces the specific density of the resultant particle, and is stated to create particles with smooth polymer surfaces that can be chosen for stability in a given electrophoretic carrier fluid, and possess acceptable electrophoretic characteristics. U.S. Pat. No. 4,680,103 (Beilin Solomon I et al.) describes a single particle electrophoretic display using inorganic pigment particles coated with an organosilane derivative containing quaternary ammonium groups; this coating is stated to provide quick release of the particles from the electrode adjacent the observer and resistance to agglomeration.
Later, it was found that simple coating of the electrophoretic particles with the modifying material was not entirely satisfactory since a change in operating conditions might cause part or all of the modifying material to leave the surface of the particles, thereby causing undesirable changes in the electrophoretic properties of the particles; the modifying material might possibly deposit on other surfaces within the electrophoretic display, which could give rise to further problems. Accordingly, techniques have been developed for securing the modifying material to the surface of the particles.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,783,614 (Chen et al.) describes an electrophoretic display using diarylide yellow pigment particles modified with a polymer of pentafluorostyrene. The modified particles are produced by forming a mixture of the unmodified particles, the pentafluorostyrene monomer and a free radical initiator, and heating and agitating this mixture so that the monomer polymerizes in situ on the surface of the particles.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,914,806 (Gordon II et al.) describes electrophoretic particles formed by reacting pigment particles with a pre-formed polymer so that the polymer becomes covalently bonded to the surface of the particles. This process is of course restricted to pigments and polymers having chemical properties which allow the necessary reaction to form the covalent bond. Furthermore, a polymer with only a few sites capable of reacting with the particle material has difficulty in reacting with the solid interface at the particle surface; this can be due to polymer chain conformation in solution, steric congestion at the particle surface, or slow reactions between the polymer and the surface. Often, these problems restrict such reactions to short polymer chains, and such short chains typically only have a small effect on particle stability in electrophoretic media.
It is also known to use, in electrophoretic displays, particles consisting essentially of polymer; if dark colored particles are required, the polymer particles can be stained with a heavy metal oxide. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,360,689; 5,498,674; and 6,117,368. Although forming the electrophoretic particles from a polymer allows close control over the chemical composition of the particles, such polymer particles usually have much lower opacity than particles formed from inorganic pigments.
The aforementioned 2002/0185378 describes the advantages of using, in electrophoretic media, pigment particles which have polymer chemically bonded to, or cross-linked about, the pigment particles. This application also describes various improvements in such polymer-coated particles, including controlling the amount of polymer deposited on the particle, the structure of the polymer, techniques for forming the polymeric coating on the electrophoretic particles, and techniques for pretreatment of the electrophoretic particles before the formation of polymer coatings thereon. The application also describes a process for producing such a polymer-coated pigment particle, this process comprising: (a) reacting the pigment particle with a reagent having a functional group capable of reacting with, and bonding to, the particle, and also having a polymerizable or polymerization-initiating group, thereby causing the functional group to react with the particle surface and attach the polymerizable group thereto; and (b) reacting the product of step (a) with at least one monomer or oligomer under conditions effective to cause reaction between the polymerizable or polymerization-initiating group on the particle and the at least one monomer or oligomer, thereby causing the formation of polymer bonded to the pigment particle.
The aforementioned 2002/0180687 describes an electrophoretic medium comprising a plurality of particles suspended in a hydrocarbon suspending fluid, the particles being capable of moving through the fluid upon application of an electric field to the medium, the fluid having dissolved or dispersed therein a polyisobutylene having a viscosity average molecular weight in the range of about 400,000 to 1,200,000 g/mole, the polyisobutylene comprising from about 0.25 to about 2.5 percent by weight of the suspending fluid. The same application also describes an electrophoretic medium comprising a plurality of particles suspended in a suspending fluid, the particles being capable of moving through the fluid upon application of an electric field to the medium, the fluid having dissolved or dispersed therein a polymer having an intrinsic viscosity of η in the suspending fluid and being substantially free from ionic or ionizable groups in the suspending fluid, the polymer being present in the suspending fluid in a concentration of from about 0.5 [η]−1 to about 2.0 [η]−1. The presence of the polyisobutylene (PIB) or other polymer in the suspending fluid substantially increases the bistability of the display.
As already indicated, electrophoretic displays require only low electrical power to switch from one state to another. For a bistable display, this low power requirement for switching translates directly into a low overall power requirement for operation of the display. However, electrophoretic displays do not have unlimited image stability. Brownian diffusion and gravitational settling of the pigment particles, together with motion driven by small residual voltages induced by the applied switching pulse and other factors, all can degrade the optical state achieved by switching of the display. In cases where there is no mechanism to prevent this kind of optical state decay, the optical state must be periodically refreshed. Refreshing the display consumes power, and thus diminishes the utility of the display. In addition, in certain applications (active matrix driven displays in particular) it is difficult or impossible to accomplish the refreshing of a single pixel without a blanking pulse (i.e., a pulse which drives the pixel to one of its extreme optical states before it is driven to the final desired optical state cf. the aforementioned 2003/0137521. For these reasons, improvements in the image stability of electrophoretic media are still highly desirable.
Also as already discussed, the aforementioned 2002/0180687 describes electrophoretic media which achieve good image stability by incorporation of a high molecular weight polymer, for example PIB, that has good solubility in the suspending medium (typically an aliphatic hydrocarbon such as Isopar G) but which is not absorbed on the electrophoretic particles. The presence of this polymer in solution is believed (although the present invention is in no way limited by this belief) to induce a weak flocculation of the pigments by a mechanism known in the colloid science art as “depletion flocculation”. Polymers other than PIB can be used for the same purpose. An example of a second polymer that has been shown to be useful for this purpose is Kraton G, a block copolymer comprising a polystyrene block and a hydrogenated polyisobutylene block, that forms aggregate structures in the suspending medium. In this case, the aggregates are the species that induce the depletion flocculation, rather than the monomeric block copolymer itself.
No matter what polymer is used to induce depletion, the incorporation of soluble, high molecular weight materials into the suspending medium will increase the viscosity of that medium. Since the response time of the display (the time needed at a given operating voltage to change the display, or any given pixel thereof, between its two extreme optical states) is proportional to the viscosity of the medium, the switching speed of the display will be reduced by this approach to image stability. Furthermore, since the depletion flocculation mechanism is only active at concentrations of polymer above the overlap concentration (which can be operationally defined as the concentration of polymer that causes the viscosity of the medium to increase by a factor of two), all polymers that act by this mechanism can be expected to produce a similar diminution of the switching speed. In practice, the switching speed is reduced by approximately a factor of two to three when enough polymer is used to give adequate image stability. It is desirable to have other means of achieving image stability that do not suffer from this tradeoff with response time.
As discussed above, PIB and other polymers improve image stability by manipulating the colloidal stability of the pigment particles. The preferred polymer coated particles described in the aforementioned 2002/0185378 are colloidally stable in the suspending medium because of a polymer shell of (typically) poly(lauryl methacrylate) that is grown on the surface of the particles during their preparation. By appropriate manipulation of the composition of the polymer shell, it is possible in principle to make particles with the same degree of colloidal stability (and hence displays with the same image stability) as that afforded by PIB, Kraton, and other polymers dispersed in the suspending medium but without requiring addenda like PIB in the suspending medium. Such displays should be substantially faster than displays that contain PIB, or equivalently, should operate at equivalent speed at lower applied voltage.
In one aspect, this invention seeks to provide approaches to providing electrophoretic particles with modified polymer shells that allow the production of fast, image-stable displays.
In other aspect, this invention seeks to provide an improved form of the two-step process for preparing such polymer-coated electrophoretic particles described in Paragraph 31 above. In preferred forms of this process, titania (or a similar metal oxide pigment) is first coated with silica, and the silica-coated titania is treated with a silane containing an ethylenic group. The resultant silane-treated titania may then be reacted with a variety of unsaturated monomers, for example, 2-ethylhexyl acrylate or lauryl methacrylate, in the presence of a free-radical polymerization initiator, to form the desired polymer-coated titania. Carbon black is treated with a diazotizing agent containing an ethylenic group, for example, the reaction product of 4-vinylaniline and nitrous acid, to attach ethylenic groups to the carbon black surface, and thereafter may be reacted with a variety of unsaturated monomers in substantially the same way as described for titania.
In the specific processes shown in the Examples of the aforementioned 2002/0185378, the final polymerization steps (the so-called “graft polymerization steps”) are conducted in toluene, primarily because this is a solvent known in the polymer industry to have good properties for use in such free radical polymerizations. However, its use as a solvent in processes for preparing polymer-coated electrophoretic pigment particles is markedly inconvenient. For various reasons discussed at length in the aforementioned E Ink and MIT patents and applications, in practice the suspending fluid used in electrophoretic displays is an aliphatic hydrocarbon (alone or in combination with a halocarbon). Thus, since the polymer-coated pigment particles will eventually be dispersed in an aliphatic hydrocarbon, and it is necessary to avoid contaminating this aliphatic hydrocarbon with toluene (since the behavior of electrophoretic media tends in certain cases to be highly sensitive to small changes in the composition of the suspending fluid), after the polymerization in toluene is finished and the polymer-coated pigment separated from the toluene, it is necessary to remove all traces of the toluene before the polymer-coated pigment particles are suspended in the final suspending fluid. In practice, it is necessary to wash the toluene-containing pigment particles from the graft polymerization step one or more times with tetrahydrofuran (THF), centrifuge after washing to separate the pigment from the THF and finally to dry the pigment in an oven to remove the last traces of THF. All these processes have to be carried out separately on the two pigments used in a dual particle electrophoretic medium.
These washing, centrifuging and drying steps are labor intensive and costly. Further expense is incurred by the need to re-disperse the dried pigment in the final suspending fluid. Furthermore, because of the presence of the toluene and THF, the washing, centrifuging and drying steps tend to be hazardous and commercial scale production of the polymer-coated pigment requires the use of explosion-proof ovens, mixers and centrifuges, and explosion-proof electrical control panels, which substantially increases the costs of the production equipment. Also, operator exposure to vapors during processing can be significant despite the use of protective devices or exposure prevention methods. Finally, the drying step may be detrimental to the performance of the pigment in the final electrophoretic medium. It is therefore desirable to find an alternative solvent in which the polymerization reaction can be carried out, and if possible to eliminate the need for drying and re-dispersion of the dried pigment.
Finally, this invention seeks to provide electro-optic displays which are capable of being driven in a simplified manner. Whether a display is reflective or transmissive, and whether or not the electro-optic medium used is bistable, to obtain a high-resolution display, individual pixels of a display must be addressable without interference from adjacent pixels. One way to achieve this objective is to provide an array of non-linear elements, such as transistors or diodes, with at least one non-linear element is associated with each pixel, to produce an “active matrix” display. An addressing or pixel electrode, which addresses one pixel, is connected to an appropriate voltage source through the associated non-linear element. Typically, when the non-linear element is a transistor, the pixel electrode is connected to the drain of the transistor, and this arrangement will be assumed in the following description, although it is essentially arbitrary and the pixel electrode could be connected to the source of the transistor. Conventionally, in high resolution arrays, the pixels are arranged in a two-dimensional array of rows and columns, such that any specific pixel is uniquely defined by the intersection of one specified row and one specified column. The sources of all the transistors in each column are connected to a single column electrode, while the gates of all the transistors in each row are connected to a single row electrode; again the assignment of sources to rows and gates to columns is conventional but essentially arbitrary, and could be reversed if desired. The row electrodes are connected to a row driver, which essentially ensures that at any given moment only one row is selected, i.e., that there is applied to the selected row electrode a voltage such as to ensure that all the transistors in the selected row are conductive, while there is applied to all other rows a voltage such as to ensure that all the transistors in these non-selected rows remain non-conductive. The column electrodes are connected to column drivers, which place upon the various column electrodes voltages selected to drive the pixels in the selected row to their desired optical states. (The aforementioned voltages are relative to a common front electrode which is conventionally provided on the opposed side of the electro-optic medium from the non-linear array and extends across the whole display.) After a pre-selected interval known as the “line address time” the selected row is deselected, the next row is selected, and the voltages on the column drivers are changed to that the next line of the display is written. This process is repeated so that the entire display is written in a row-by-row manner. Thus, in a display with N rows, any given pixel can only be addressed for a fraction 1/N of the time.
Processes for manufacturing active matrix displays are well established. Thin-film transistors, for example, can be fabricated using various deposition and photolithography techniques. A transistor includes a gate electrode, an insulating dielectric layer, a semiconductor layer and source and drain electrodes. Application of a voltage to the gate electrode provides an electric field across the dielectric layer, which dramatically increases the source-to-drain conductivity of the semiconductor layer. This change permits electrical conduction between the source and the drain electrodes. Typically, the gate electrode, the source electrode, and the drain electrode are patterned. In general, the semiconductor layer is also patterned in order to minimize stray conduction (i.e., cross-talk) between neighboring circuit elements.
Liquid crystal displays commonly employ amorphous silicon (“a-Si”) thin-film transistors (“TFT's”) as switching devices for display pixels. Such TFT's typically have a bottom-gate configuration. Within one pixel, a thin-film capacitor typically holds a charge transferred by the switching TFT. Electrophoretic displays can use similar TFT's with capacitors, although the function of the capacitors differs somewhat from those in liquid crystal displays; see copending application Ser. No. 09/565,413, filed May 5, 2000 (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,030,412), and U.S. Patent Publications Nos. 2002/0106847 and 2002/0060321. Thin-film transistors can be fabricated to provide high performance. Fabrication processes, however, can result in significant cost.
In TFT addressing arrays, pixel electrodes are charged via the TFT's during a line address time. During the line address time, a TFT is switched to a conducting state by changing an applied gate voltage. For example, for an n-type TFT, a gate voltage is switched to a “high” state to switch the TFT into a conducting state.
Undesirably, the pixel electrode typically exhibits a voltage shift when the select line voltage is changed to bring the TFT channel into depletion. The pixel electrode voltage shift occurs because of the capacitance between the pixel electrode and the TFT gate electrode. The voltage shift can be modeled as:ΔVp=GgpΔ/(Cgp+Cp+Cs)
where Cgp is the gate-pixel capacitance, Cp the pixel capacitance, Cs the storage capacitance and Δ is the fraction of the gate voltage shift when the TFT is effectively in depletion. This voltage shift is often referred to as “gate feedthrough”.
Gate feedthrough can compensated by shifting the top plane voltage (the voltage applied to the common front electrode) by an amount ΔVp. Complications arise, however, because ΔVp varies from pixel to pixel due to variations of Cgp from pixel to pixel. Thus, voltage biases can persist even when the top plane is shifted to compensate for the average pixel voltage shift. The voltage biases can cause errors in the optical states of pixels, as well as degrade the electro-optic medium.
Variations in Cgp are caused, for example, by misalignment between the two conductive layers used to form the gate and the source-drain levels of the TFT; variations in the gate dielectric thickness; and variations in the line etch, i.e., line width errors.
Some tolerance for mis-registered conductive layers can be obtained by utilizing a gate electrode that completely overlaps the drain electrode. This technique, however, can cause a large gate-pixel capacitance. A large gate-pixel capacitance is undesirable because it can create a need for a large compensation in one of the select line voltage levels. Moreover, existing addressing structures can produce unintended bias voltages, for example, due to pixel-to-pixel variations in gate-pixel capacitance. Such voltages can produce a detrimental effect on certain electro-optic media, particularly when present for extended periods of time.
The foregoing problems render designing a bistable electro-optic display using a electro-optic medium without a voltage threshold a difficult task. Since some pixels on the display may be updated infrequently, if at all, one must ensure that the optical state of the pixel remains unperturbed as much as possible. Practically, this means minimizing the quantity and amplitude of parasitic voltage spikes that are applied to the pixel.
As an example, consider the voltages applied to the source (data) lines of an active matrix display being scanned in the conventional manner described above. In an encapsulated electrophoretic display, these lines are switching between +15V and −15V relative to the common electrode, as frequently as every line address time (the time for which a given row of the active matrix display is selected) of the display. These voltages are capacitively coupled directly to the pixel electrodes of the display, and this coupling may be quite strong in a field-shielded pixel design. Even if these coupled voltage spikes are, over the long term, constrained to be DC balanced, continuous application of these voltage spikes may result in changes in the optical state of the pixels.
It is known that these voltage spikes, and the problems resulting therefrom, can be reduced by providing a pixel storage capacitor coupled to each pixel electrode; see, for example, the aforementioned 2002/0106847. In the prior art, essentially the only practicable way to minimize or eliminate the effects of these voltage spikes is to increase the size of the pixel storage capacitor, which increases the power consumption of the display considerably. In addition, the large size of the storage capacitor limits the maximum achievable resolution, and may result in a decrease in panel yield by increasing the area of metal-metal overlap.
It has now been realized that the problems discussed above can be reduced or eliminated by using, in an active matrix electro-optic display, an electro-optic medium that exhibits a voltage threshold, i.e., a medium which essentially does not switch when subjected to a low but non-zero voltage.